Customer Reviews

Seizure

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(20)
1 star:		(34)

 

 

If you fall into one of the following four categories you might be considering reading this book, but BEWARE, with the possible exception of number four you will in all likelihood be very disappointed. First, you are a diehard Robin Cook Fan. Second, you read SHOCK and understand that Spencer Wingate and his cohorts at the Wingate Clinic play a relatively small but central role in this book. Third, you are interested in the medical aspects and the ethical debate concerning cloning and stem cell research. Last, you are a speed reader who only skims most novels for the central element of the plot and are not bothered by unlikable characters and uneven writing.

The plot is as described in other reviews and on the book jacket. Dr. Daniel Lowell, a brilliant medical researcher (previously employed by Merck) resigns the Harvard faculty to start his own biotech firm. He is joined by his younger associate, Stephanie D'Agostino, with the hope of commercializing a procedure developed by Daniel, HTSR (Homologous Transgenic Segmental Recombination). Their future is threatened when the powerful Senator Ashley Butler threatens to introduce legislation banning the procedure at a time when Daniel's firm is in need of a further cash infusion from his venture capital backers. Meanwhile, Senator Butler's staff research has led him to believe that the HTSR treatment might successfully provide a cure for his recently diagnosed but rapidly progressing Parkinson's Disease. (Since it would threaten his political career, his disease has been a closely kept secret, known only to his long time aide Carol Manning and his physician.) There are several subplots including a DNA sample extracted from a fragment of the Shroud of Turin, the use of the facilities of the Wingate clinic (which has relocated to the Bahamas), and Stephanie's family connections to the Boston Mob (in an unbelievable use of stereotyping).

As the author has explained, he views himself as writing "faction", and wants to use his books to inform and enlighten, as well as preach whatever happens to be his message of the moment. However, he has apparently forgotten that his stories should also be interesting and entertaining. He claims that he needed to research the political aspects of this book in D.C., and yet the political insights are minimal. The information on the Shroud of Turin was new to me, but the segments on therapeutic cloning were much too technical and lengthy to maintain my interest. Thus a story with several potentially interesting subplots and which had the potential to involve an interesting discussion of the potential ethical dilemmas involved in biotech experimentation tried to do too much and as a result accomplished almost nothing.

In addition, without exception the characters were totally unlikable stereotypes and caricatures. Daniel was a selfish individual lacking in judgment who was only interested in fame and fortune; the Catholic clergy were primarily interested in their political goals; Senator Butler was a totally self-centered fraud, Stephanie was portrayed as the typical female companion who was too weak to resist Daniel's and the Senator's plan even though her instincts and her intuition told her it was wrong and would probably fail; finally, the distractions caused by her family had no discernible purpose except to lengthen the book. And if you plan to read this book to find out what happened to Spencer Wingate, Paul Saunders and Kurt Hermann you will be disappointed as well. Even the dialog and the writng style seem unnatural for much of the book.

The only reasons I rounded up my rating are that there are a few moments of real tension if you plough through the whole book, there is some interesting information presented about the controversy concerning therapeutic cloning, and the plot has promise (although unfulfilled). So , if you fit into category four at the begining of my review, you might find this book marginally worthwhile. Unfortunately, I got over my disappointment with the author's last few books (since I used to be a big fan of his) and read this in my usual thorough style, only to be disappointed once again.

Robin Cook's thrillers used to pace the genre, worthy of praise like "heart-pounding" and "pulse-racing"...but this book was so wooden, it was dead on arrival. I don't know why the dialogue was so poorly written (the characters never used contractions, and frequently made ridiculous exclamations, like 'my heavens!'), the plot incredibly slow to take shape and the twists telegraphed chapters in advance. Finally, the rapid climax is so unexpected, it feels like half the book is missing and Cook had to get the title to his publisher.

Frankly, this was a parody of a good Robin Cook work...the ethics he promises to examine are explored mostly in the afterword. If you want to read this book, just take two minutes and look at the flap jacket--that's the entire story, right there. Just terrible.

I'm a reader who likes to whiz through a good book and not have to think much about what I'm reading. I used to be able to do that with Robin Cook novels, and I LOVED them. I am in the medical field and absolutely adored Dr. Cook's early works. His recent novels, though, seem to be harder to follow, and not as focused on the actual medical thriller genre that I love so much. I yearn for something like Coma, Harmful Intent, Outbreak, etc. Earlier Cook works would have me up til the wee hours, sometimes finishing his book in a matter of 1-2 days. I couldn't even get past the first 3 chapters of this one. Big disappointment.

Robin Cook, medical doctor turned prolific fiction writer, typically writes the kind of fiction that earns single-word reviews. Descriptions like "brilliant," "thrilling," and "gripping" make good soundbytes that can appear on dust jackets and in advertisements. With his latest novel, Seizure, Dr. Cook has again penned a book that can be summed up in a single word: agonizing.

From the very beginning all the way to the undramatic ending, Seizure plods along, hampered by underdeveloped characters, bizarre and disconnected side plots, and a central message that is poorly articulated and embarrassingly biased.

Senator Ashley Butler is powerful, outspoken, and one of the most conservative democrats in history. He's tough on the issues, a grandstander on the Senate floor, and a bulldog when it comes to lobbyists. He's also a sick man, his normal motor functions eroded a little more each day by his progressively debilitating Parkinson's disease.

Dr. Daniel Lowell is egotistical, stubborn, greedy, and brilliant. His revolutionary technique for cloning stem cells could change the medical industry--and do away with diseases like Senator Butler's forever. But is the world ready to say yes to cloning?

As Senator Butler faces the ethical dilemma of his life--stick with his principles and ban Dr. Lowell's procedure, or abandon his traditional morals and become a human guinea pig in hopes of ridding himself of his disease--Dr. Lowell prepares to face the onslaught of political and ethical outrage his new technology will undoubtedly provoke. When the influential senator approaches him with a clandestine offer to guarantee passage of a bill protecting his procedure if he will heal the senator's Parkinson's, all signs should point to an intriguing and controversial medical thriller. Unfortunately, what results instead is without question the weakest effort Cook has ever produced.

From the earliest chapters one of the book's primary errors is readily apparent: Cook forgot to include any likeable characters. Senator Butler comes across as a hypocritical bull, which is almost certainly what the author intended. Dr. Cook seems to be firmly entrenched on the side of his most liberal colleagues in the medical profession, who appear to believe that anyone not in favor of "therapeutic" cloning and stem-cell research are either religious wackoes or anti-scientific idiots. Senator Butler is portrayed as both. Cook stops short of making the senator's "conversion" in the face of his illness a heroic gesture, but there is no agonizing over it either. The morally righteous senator abandons his ideals with all the forethought of a lemming sprinting over a cliff.

Daniel Lowell, who with his pro-cloning, semi-legal medicine is supposed to be the maverick hero, is abrasive and annoying. His romantic relationship with his assistant is problematic enough in a book about an ethical controversy, but sexual ethics aside, the relationship is enough to make the reader cringe. At least once in nearly every chapter the words "a wave of frustration washed over him" or "she fought back her anger" appear. The couple don't like each other, can't work together, and manage to irritate the reader almost as much as they bother one another. Dr. Cook should stay away from trying to write romance into his future books.

Another serious problem is the ineffective preachiness of the book's message. Dr. Cook obviously feels that cloning is justified as long as it doesn't result in the birth of a human baby, the theoretical procedure known as "reproductive cloning." In the author's note he makes a point of distinguishing reproductive cloning from theraputic cloning, where stem cells are harvested from a human blastocyst (a pre-implantation fetus), the nucleus removed, and DNA from a donor cell implanted, forming a new cell capable of either developing into a human baby or virtually any other kind of cell desired by the genetic engineers running the show. In theory, and in Seizure, this kind of procedure is capable of turning back the clock on progressive diseases like Parkinson's. In real life, the idea is controversial and sparks heated debate at all levels of the political spectrum. Far from being a mainstream ideal, as Cook would have his readers believe, theraputic cloning is contested by many in the medical field as a risky and baseless guess without sufficient evidence of plausibility. For Christians, of course, cloning presents a spiritual problem; manipulating life at the genetic level sounds to many like playing God.

With its controversial message, Seizure should have been a provocative and interesting read. The best "message books" make readers second-guess themselves while dialoging with the characters. A prime example is the "Kerry Kilcannon" political trilogy by Richard North Patterson. Through thoughtful plot lines and brilliantly crafted characters, Patterson succeeds in drawing readers into his serious discussions about abortion, judicial legislation, and gun control. Even those who disagree with Patterson's conclusions can appreciate the literary skill by which he takes his readers along for the ride. A good writer can get a message across in a way that allows the reader to temporarily suspend his own prejudices and beliefs. Such books, incidentally, can be dangerous for some Christians who are not fully able to return to reality once the suspension of disbelief is broken; take all the uproar over Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code as an example. With Seizure, however, this danger does not exist, because the author fails in this literary goal. There is no suspension of disbelieve because the reader never gets drawn into the story. Thus the message Cook wants to get across is convoluted and remains utterly unconvincing. Readers who don't believe that theraputic cloning is morally acceptable will not be swayed, and those who do agree with the premise will be left wondering why they had to put up with the characters just to be convinced of something in which they already believe.

Another problem with the book is the author's use of strange subplots that contribute little to the story other than unintended questions about the sanity and intelligence of the characters. Somehow, between an international hunt for a scrap from the Shroud of Turin and a laughably stereotypical Mafia-like crime syndicate, the central plot of the story--the botched operation by which Senator Butler develops temporal lobe epilepsy (leading to seizures, as the title suggests)--doesn't unfold until the last few chapters.

Seizure is a disappointment on every front. Robin Cook, an internationally best-selling author, has let his ideas about the future of medicine get in the way of his ability to write a good story. He refers to his work as "faction," fiction with a good deal of fact thrown in, but Seizure could be better characterized as "function"--bad fiction interspersed with a lot of junk. Hopefully his next novel will be good enough to make up for this one.

I'm a Robin Cook fan. Having said that, I am very displeased with Seizure. I've been losing out on my favorite authors lately - first Koontz and 'The Taking', now this one. Cook usually has a grasp of the medical thriller, the controversial procedure, and this one has the controversy, but not the thrill. The first 300 or so pages seemed like 'foreplay' to me - lead in to the actual procedure being done. The side trip to Italy for a piece of the Shroud of Turin for some of 'Christ's' DNA was to me most far-fetched. I hated the principals - Stephanie and Daniel long before the book ended - both of whom seemed very naive considering their supposed credentials, and the additional side plot of 'mobsters' trying to protect their investment in the doctor's business 'CURE, Inc' seemed out of place and unnecessary, as I felt - given enough time either Stephanie or Daniel or both would be their own undoing soon enough. Other Cook books - Brain, Vector, Fever, Toxin, are much more worthy of your time.

Robin Cook had me hooked when I first read Coma. I read all of his books with a vicious furor. Then as I read more of them, I noticed that they started to take on a sci-fi type story. That's when, in my opinion, Cook started to go downhill and hasn't stopped since.
Like Coma and Cook's other books, this book revolves around controversial medical issues. Two scientists involved in stem cell research and therapeutic cloning are forced by a conservative Southern senator to use their untested gene therapy to cure his Parkinson's disease. Since the procedure requires DNA, the senator asks them to use blood from the Shroud of Turin. The scientists must travel from Boston to Italy to the Bahamas, constantly avoiding scrutiny by people trying either tostop them or to discover their plans. The procedure finally takes place within the last 70 pages, making for an anticlimactic ending, especially given the possibilities established by the overall premise. With a number of loose ends not tied up in a completely satisfactory way, the book almost begs for a sequel but I don't think I'd even bother reading it. This book was way too far fetched.

Robin Cook is considered the master of the medical thriller. A best-selling author since his debut novel COMA, Robin Cook sets the bar as to what it takes to write a solid medical thriller. In this case, his book revolves around the possibility of using genetic engineering to cure diseases.
Senator Ashley Butler has Parkinson's disease. He has Presidential aspirations and will seek out any possible cure of the disease no matter how long the odds are. He focuses in on a promising start up company run by Dr. Daniel Lowell who invented a technique to implant DNA into the brain to stop the disease. The problem is that it has never been tested on humans. Butler doesn't care and demands the treatment while holding over Daniel's head the possible passage of a bill that will kill his company. Will it work?
Cook weaves a whole book around the premise of genetic engineering. Given his long-term history of writing medical thrillers, he has a whole host of stock devices in an attempt to create a more exciting plot. However, the plot gets increasingly contrived and unrealistic as the book moves along. Is it really necessary to throw Italian gangsters into the mix? Why must the DNA come from a certain substance that reeks of divinity? Stock characters do not add any substance to the work. The disappointing and predictable ending is an appropriate exclamation point for this bit of fluff.

This book is boring!! Don't bother...Also WAY too preachy about medical ethics and Dr. Cook's personal beliefs. I kept reading and hoping but the book never delivers. Too many attempts at an interesting story; the congressman, the researchers, the Italian family -that just don't hold together. Read Cook's MUCH MUCH earlier works (e.g. COMA) if you want a good medical thriller. Or try Michael Palmer's work!

I have read several of Robin Cook's novels and have enjoyed the majority of them. I thought Coma was brilliant. This book ,however, was awful. I could not believe the dialogue. I wish a had a copy next to me to cite specific examples since there are so many. Sorry Robin but men and women, Phds or not, do not speak to each other that way. Did anyone else notice the odd use of exclamation points ? The character development was shoddy at best. I have never reviewed a book this way in the past but this time I just could not help myself. Save yourself the grief and pick up a magazine instead.

Robin Cook has produced some intriguing and entertaining novels in the distant past. Even if his work was always stamped with a trademark formula, and was largely "by the numbers" and overly plot-driven, his earlier work nonetheless provided a bit of interest. His thrillers were thrilling, as they should be. "Seizure," however, is remarkably bad. The characterizations are nothing more than cartoons. This isn't even "plot driven," as the novel is so weak, and so flimsy, that it barely has a plot. It is as if Cook had a pretty good idea for a book, then turned the assignment of actually writing it over to his 20 year-old neice (or whomever, but someone of dubious writing talent). The poor craftsmanship and crappy execution of this lame attempt is offensive to me. Cook has demonstrated in the past that he has talent for churning out readable thrillers. If his work has now dropped to this low of a level, however, he may soon find himself out of a market for even his pulp fiction product. Avoid this book! And if you know Cook, tell him he owes me six quid, the price of his lastest ghastly mess.